XI.

Upon the Head first the disease,

As a bold Conqueror doth seize,

Begins with Mans Metropolis,

Secur’d the Capitol, and then it knew

It could at pleasure weaker parts subdue.

Blood started through each eye;

The redness of that Skie,

Fore-told a tempest nigh.

The tongue did slow all ore

With clotted Filth and Gore;

As doth a Lions when some innocent prey

He hath devoured and brought away:

Hoarsness and sores the throat did fill,

And stopt the passages of speech and life;

No room was left for groans or grief;

Too cruel and imperious ill!

Which not content to kill,

With tyrannous and dreadful pain,

Dost take from men the very power to complain.

The Plague of Athens, which hapned in the second year of the Peloponnesian Warre First described in Greek by Thucydides; then in Latin by Lucretius. Now attempted in English · 第 15 / 36 题